Fisher Center at Bard presents
Letters From the Front
A Tribute to All Who Serve
Artwork: © 2026 • Gindes Music Productions, LLC.
November 11
Fisher Center at Bard presents
Artwork: © 2026 • Gindes Music Productions, LLC.
November 11
Composed by Patrick Zimmerli with libretto by Mirabelle Ordinaire (Metropolitan Opera), Letters From the Front is a new work for four voices and piano developed from letters sent by American service members and their loved ones during wartime.
Executive producer and pianist Ian Gindes teamed with artistic originator Steve Robinson alongside Zimmerli and Ordinaire to select the letters and set their words to music in honor of the 250th birthday of the United States. The performers bring to life the voices of the writers by telling their stories through songs based on letters written during one of our nation’s most crucial wars, including the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and the Gulf War.
This music is a tribute to the men and women who made the sacrifice of service over the course of 250 years. Each piece represents not only history, but also the hope that their duty was done for a greater purpose—for their families, friends, neighbors, communities, and country.
The performance includes narration written by Jeffrey Ernstoff, formerly of Radio City, who has created numerous special events and live productions for television and theater, and is staged and directed by George Cederquist of Chicago’s North Park University.
Act I
Overture
I’ll Live For Your Letters
I Sat Myself Down This Moment
Preparation For Battle
A Minute Doesn’t Go By
Vietnam War Song
Where Are You Tonight?
All Greasy And Salty
This Is A Most Horrible War
I Have a Rendezvous With Death
Act II
I’ll Live For Your Letters Reprise
Tonite Two Fellows Got Together
Poem For Irving F. Diamond
A Baby At Home
Now There Will Be Stories To Tell
Engagement Letter
It Won’t Be Long Now
Finale
Mezzo-soprano
Director
Piano
Soprano
Tenor
Librettist
Bass-Baritone
Composer
Angela Born | Mezzo-soprano
Earning critical acclaim for her “rich, clear voice” that is “geared towards storytelling” (Chicagoland Musical Theatre), Chicago-based mezzo-soprano Angela Born is a fach-defying opera theatre artist and interpreter of new classical works. Her many operatic roles include Marjorie in Fizz and Ginger (Whitney E. George), Lucinda in Dark Sisters (Nico Muhly), Patience in Patience and Sarah (Paula Kimper), the titular role in Princess Ida, and The Witch in Hansel und Gretel. She is also the recipient of multiple Chicago DCASE grants and is the 2023 songSLAM winner for her premiere performance of Michelle Isaac’s “What Every Woman Must Not Say.” Ms. Born has performed with many opera companies, including the Lyric Opera of the North, the Loveland Opera Theatre, the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, the Ouroboros Opera Company, and the Chicago City Opera.
George Cederquist | Director
Award-winning director George Cederquist is the Producing Artistic Director of Chicago Fringe Opera and is both the Artistic Director of Opera and Theatre Department Chair at North Park University. His digital opera short ‘Telekinetik’ for Catapult Opera was later screened at the 2025 Prototype Festival and called “a place where David Lynch would have felt right at home” by the New York Times. He has directed new productions and opera scenes with Opera Festival of Chicago, Chicago Dramatists, the Chicago Sinfonietta, Pittsburgh Opera, the Bay View Music Festival, Chicago Folks Operetta, Wolf Trap Opera, and Chautauqua Opera. In addition to receiving a National Opera Association award, two American Prizes in Directing and Opera America’s 2013 Director-Designer competition award, he has been awarded a Best Music Video Award at the Aladerri International Film Festival. He is the executive producer of ‘Opera Box Score’, America’s Talk Radio Show About Opera, heard on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and WNUR 89.3 FM Chicago. Learn more at https://gjcederquist.com/.
Ian Gindes | Piano
Pianist and Executive Producer Ian Gindes has performed as a solo artist around the US, including at Carnegie Hall in New York, the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, the Donald W. Nixon Centre for the Visual and Performing Arts, and as a featured artist with the St. Louis Philharmonic. His 2023 recording, Rachmaninoff (Navona) was lauded by The Whole Note magazine (Canada) for his “illustrious renditions…” of “…Rachmaninoff masterworks.” Gramophone magazine (UK) praised his work on his previous release, American Visions (Centaur, 2016), for his “keyboard brilliance.” His music has been featured by SiriusXM Symphony Hall, WFMT Chicago, Jed Distler’s Between The Keys on WWFM, American Veterans Radio, and Radio Arts Foundation of St. Louis. He has been featured on CBS 2 Chicago and WGN-TV. Ian has served in the Illinois Army National Guard for over 21years and currently holds the rank of Major, working as the Executive Officer of the 34th Division Support Troops Battalion. His military career includes serving as the HHD 65th Company Commander (2019–2021), managing personnel for relief efforts and civil unrest during the COVID pandemic, and serving as the Commander of the Illinois Army National Guard Band from 2017–2018. Ian holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance from the University of Illinois, where he studied under Leeds International Piano Competition winner Dr. Ian Hobson.
Desiree Hassler | Soprano
In addition to singing in the full-time chorus at Lyric Opera of Chicago, soprano Desirée Hassler has sung and covered roles at Lyric in Four Portraits, Cendrillon, West Side Story, Tannhäuser, Oklahoma!, Manon, Macbeth, Boris Godunov, Show Boat, Elektra, and Der Rosenkavalier. Alongside her Lyric Opera of Chicago colleagues, Hassler won her first Emmy in 2022 for Outstanding Achievement for Arts/Entertainment—Long Form Content for Pagliacci. She enjoys performing music from the Renaissance to the 21st century—in recital, concert, opera, and performance art mediums. Desirée has successfully competed from regional to international levels at the Bel Canto Competition, the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and the International Franz Liszt Competition. She graduated in 2011 with a doctorate in Vocal Performance and Literature from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Tyler Lee | Tenor
Long Island-born tenor Tyler Lee is a full-time chorister at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Grant Park Music Festival. He was the tenor soloist in Voices of Light by Richard Einhorn with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under conductor Marin Alsop. He received his Bachelor of Music at Peabody Institute and his Master of Music at NYU Steinhardt. At six years old, he wrote and voiced the “Dexter and Computress Get Mandark,” the 50th episode of Cartoon Network’s Dexter’s Laboratory. In the years following, he was a series regular on Disney’s Out of the Box, and a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
Mirabelle Ordinaire | Librettist
Mirabelle Ordinaire is a French director, librettist, and translator based in Paris and New York. She joined the Metropolitan Opera Stage Directors in 2018 and is thrilled to have been the revival director of Zeffirelli’s iconic Boheme production there for the past three seasons. Productions she has created this season include Les Pêcheurs de Perles at the Opéra de Dijon and Don Pasquale at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège, Belgium. She also conceived, wrote, and staged the oratorio Alan Seeger: Instrument of Destiny by Patrick Zimmerli (Invalides, Paris, 2017; Cathedral St. John the Divine, NYC, 2019), in addition to the acclaimed Kurt Weill Story (Académie de l’Opéra de Paris, 2018). Mirabelle Ordinaire earned her PhD. In Theatre at Columbia University in 2011, and is also the artistic director of the Compagnie Extra.
Aaron Wardell | Bass-Baritone
Baritone Aaron Wardell is in high demand in the Midwest and beyond, singing a wide variety of solo operatic and concert repertoire. He was most recently seen with Chicago Concert Opera singing Alfonso in Donizetti’s La Favorita. Previously, he performed Father/Clerk in Chicago Opera Theater’s performance of Shostakovich’s The Nose, sang Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer with The Northwest Symphony in Arlington Heights, IL, and was Primo Giudice in Chicago’s Haymarket Opera’s production of Stradella’s La Susanna. Other recent roles include Spanish Sailor in Chicago Opera Theater’s production of Moby Dick and Falke in Die Fledermaus with DuPage’s New Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also appeared as Melchior in Amahl and the Night Visitors with Chamber Opera Chicago and as Dr. Raymond in the world premiere of The Great God Pan with Chicago Fringe Opera. He has sung with Pro Musica Orchestra in Columbus, OH, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, Symphony of Oak Park, The Paducah Symphony, Castleton Festival, Dayton Opera, Opera Tampa, and Central City Opera. As a concert soloist, he regularly performs with the Sheboygan Symphony and Chicago’s Niles Metropolitan Chorus. Earlier this year, he performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with both Lawrence University in Appleton, WI, and the Weidner Philharmonic at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
Patrick Zimmerli | Composer
Patrick Zimmerli is a New York- and Paris-based composer, producer, and saxophonist. His full-length opera, Lucia Joyce, premiered in Dublin, Ireland, in April 2026. Zimmerli was recently awarded a Copland Fund grant to support the 2025 release of his new album Messages. He has created a new label, Emergence Music Productions (EMP), whose first release in May 2025 was Zimmerli’s Songs of Innocence, featuring Kevin Hays and Satoshi Takeishi. A Columbia University graduate and winner of the Thelonious Monk Composers Competition, he also premiered his Alan Seeger: Instrument of Destiny, a 90-minute Oratorio based on Seeger’s works and letters during World War I, at the Cathédrale des Invalides in Paris in 2017.
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